John snorted. "The reason is that you have the tolerance of an eight year old. Mrs Hudson could drink you under the table - and has, more than once. On her home made elderflower wine the last time, as I recall."
"That stuff is lethal," grumbled Sherlock. "She's been building up resistance for years."
John rolled his eyes. "So why the guilty look? And don't try to deny it, because it's the one I'm most attuned to and I can spot it at a much greater distance than this."
Sherlock drew a deep breath. He knew he had to come clean, but his track record at distinguishing the truly unforgivable from the mildly upsetting was absolutely dire. Fear that he might ruin what they had before it even began was making his stomach hurt.
"Well, last night... I wasn't actually as drunk as I seemed," he started. John tensed in his arms and Sherlock held on tighter. "I didn't lie to you," he said quickly. "I promised I wouldn't do that and I didn't break my word, I swear. Everything I said to you was true." His hand rose to John's eyebrow and he stroked a fingertip over the scar which was a legacy of the last time he had betrayed John's trust. He leaned forward and kissed it, his lips brushing John's skin as he spoke again, his voice low. "I swear."
He drew back and John nodded for him to continue. "I was about to leave the bar, thinking about coming home to you and I... I just didn't want to hide any more." He held John's gaze. "For once, I wanted to be able to tell you how I... how much I..."
He groaned in frustration, then forced himself to open up. "I've never told anyone I loved them, John. Never wanted to, never thought I ever would. But then you came and it's as if you brought me to life and lately the words seemed to be bubbling in my throat whenever I looked at you and sometimes I was afraid to even open my mouth in case they escaped and chased you away." He sucked in a breath, telling the part of his brain which was screaming in outrage at this emotional behaviour to just fuck off, because if he lost John now then there was no hope for him. "And I thought that if I pretended to be drunker than I was, I could let them out... just a little bit. Just enough to take the edge off. And you could ignore me if it wasn't what you wanted to hear because it doesn't count when you're drunk, right? That's what you said once. You wouldn't hold it against me - I didn't think you would. And I would have had the chance, just for once in my life, to tell someone..." he broke off, looking away, his voice reduced to little more than a whisper, "...to tell someone that I loved them."
He cleared his throat, still keeping his head down. "Then all morning, I've been... well... terrified, quite frankly." He felt the colour rise in his cheeks at such an admission, but he had to do it, had to strip himself bare, because this was forever, this was the rest of their lives. "Worried that you understood me all too well, didn't feel the same, and were debating whether it would be kinder to move out."
John was silent, but he didn't pull free. Nor did he move his hand, which seemed like a positive sign. "What are you thinking?" Sherlock asked eventually, putting off the moment when he would have to look up and deduce the answer for himself.
"I'm thinking that that's unquestionably the most amazing thing anyone has ever said to me, and that if you think I'm ever going to leave you, you're out of your mind, and that I love you and I always will."
Sherlock raised his head, feeling the smile pulling at his mouth.
"I'm also thinking that I'd probably be more upset over the whole 'pretending' thing if I didn't currently have my hand on your arse as a result," John added, with a smile that showed his understanding of Sherlock's need to pull back a bit from all this emotion.
Sherlock grinned.
John fake-frowned at him, his eyes narrowing. "Are you right at this moment planning to flash your backside at me the next time you've blown something up?"
"Er... no?" Sherlock decided that a 'No' with a question mark was so clearly a 'Yes' that it didn't technically qualify as a lie. Relief was spreading through his body and reawakening the desire which had waned as he talked; he found himself watching John's mouth as he spoke and barely registering the words.
"Oh, what the hell, give it a go," John decided. "At least there'll be an upside next time I have to buy another new toaster." He started to pull Sherlock closer, then paused. "Only in private though," he warned. "I don't share either."
Sherlock nodded in agreement, his eyes already falling closed as their lips met again. He was hungry now, eager for this man who held him pinned on the sofa. All his secrets were out, confessions made, nothing nagging in the back of his mind, nothing to distract him from John's bare chest pressed against his own, John's leg between his thighs, John's tongue in his mouth, John's...
"Raise your leg," John instructed, pulling his head back.
"What?"
John slid his hand round to Sherlock's flank and patted twice. "Leg up," he repeated.
Sherlock slowly raised his knee and hitched his leg forward over John's hip, the adjustment leaving him feeling very open and exposed with John's hand right there, holding the now taut curve of his buttock. He could hear his heart beating and it sounded loud in the quiet of the flat, speeding up as John's fingers stroked across his bare skin, edging down and between, just teasing him really - but Sherlock was going to make him deliver on every one of those promises.
"Tell me what you want," John commanded, and the authority in his tone made Sherlock want to obey but left him incapable of doing so. "Things you like, things you don't like..." John continued when there was no reply. "Anything I should avoid completely? How do you feel about penetration? And what about…?"
"Yes," managed Sherlock, his voice unsteady.
"What?"
"That one. Penetration. Yes."
"So… you have experience in this area?"
"Some. Not much. And quite a long time ago."
"Right... and do you have a preference as to…"
"I want you to penetrate me. As soon as possible. Please."
"You want me to…"
"Yes. Now, please."
"But, don't you…"
"John! For God's sake, can we talk about this later?" Sherlock pulled free and launched himself off the sofa, urging John up with him. Frustration seemed to have restored his faculties, at least temporarily, and he took the chance to move things along.
"For the last six months I haven't been able to pass you in the kitchen without wanting to bend over the table and beg you to fuck me, so will you please, now, if it's not too much trouble, be so very kind as to oblige me?" He started walking backwards across the living room, tugging a dazed looking John along by his belt loops.
"Bloody hell!" John was catching up, his eyes gleaming, until another thought clearly struck him and he stopped. "Wait! Do you have...?"
Sherlock released John's belt, turned his back and kept walking, looking over his shoulder as he paused near the doorway. "I've got everything you need, John," he promised, intentionally deepening his voice as he eased his pyjama pants lower on his hips. John's gaze immediately dropped and Sherlock experienced a new emotion which he later categorised as 'gleeful anticipation'. A small push, a slight wiggle, and he was naked.
"Whenever you're ready," he murmured, stepping free of the fabric and moving away at a deliberate saunter.
The rasp of a zipper made him want to turn but he resisted, then there was the muffled thud of a pair of jeans hitting the carpet. He added a bit more of a swing to his hips but kept moving, then John growled his name in a voice which licked down his spine like a tongue of fire. Sherlock froze, then made a dash for his bedroom. He let himself be caught just inside the doorway and they fell together onto the bed in a rolling tangle of limbs.
Sherlock ended on his back, half laughing and trying to catch his breath, but John didn't give him a chance, placing a firm hand on either side of his head and commencing to kiss him with a single-minded determination which Sherlock could only admire as he wrapped arms and legs around his doctor and banished any thought that wasn't 'hold on tight' into some corner of his brain which was utterly unworthy of his current attention.
Eventually, John raised his head, his grip preventing Sherlock's automatic attempt to follow.
"Hi," he said, his expression bemused.
"Hello," Sherlock replied. "We're really here," he advised. "I'm definitely naked, and you're absolutely on top of me, and I'm certainly not letting go until you have delivered on the frankly impressive promise I can feel against my hip." He took advantage of the way John's gasp relaxed his muscles and reached up to kiss him again, rolling them over and smiling as John's hands immediately slid down to his backside.
Sherlock dropped his head and licked up the side of John's neck, pushing one hand into his hair to keep him in place while his other hand stroked over John's shoulder and upper arm, feeling the muscles flex in time with the hands squeezing his bum. He stretched himself out, aligning their hips as they rocked together, and that was... that was John's cock... sliding against his own. Nothing between them. Just heat and hardness and...
"Sherlock." John's voice sounded awed. "Sherlock, I..."
Enough talking. Sherlock abandoned John's neck and tugged his head round and their mouths met fiercely, already open and eager, their tongues twining as they sucked at each other hungrily. Sherlock shifted to get a better angle and the light dusting of hair on John's chest rasped over his nipples making his hips jerk in reaction, their kiss breaking off as they both groaned.
They pressed their foreheads together, maintaining eye contact as Sherlock propped himself up onto his elbows and deliberately repeated the movement, brushing his chest against John's with tiny twists of his torso, teasing himself and glad of the distraction because he didn't want this to all be over too quickly. He was surprised when John's hands slid round to grip the sides of his hips and even more so to be suddenly lifted - not far, just high enough that John could slide a foot or so down the bed underneath him, then settle him back down, but now John's head was level with...
"Oh, God!" John's lips closed around his nipple and started sucking, and not gently sucking... not polite, well-mannered, tentative sucking, which would have been nice and pleasant and good, but the kind of sucking that made Sherlock's toes arch and spasm against the bed. The kind of sucking that made his mind blank and his cock hard and his mouth open, but all that emerged was John's name in the kind of breathless pant that would have embarrassed him had he still given a flying fuck about anything of the kind.
John's hands stroked down the back of his thighs, then took a firmer hold and spread them wide so that Sherlock was splayed out on top of him, shockingly aware of how indecently naked he must look, how vulnerable and exposed, and how was it that the thought was not alarming but exciting - making his heart thump and his breath heave, making his arms tremble with the strain of keeping him propped up over John who suddenly switched sides, licking his tongue over Sherlock's other nipple and then blowing on it while the first throbbed and pulsed as the air hit it again.
"John! God... what are you doing to me?"
"Number fourteen on my list," murmured John before latching on more strongly, and Sherlock's arms nearly gave way.
